Painting with Light: Digital Photography Workshop

Master long exposure photography and paint your photographs with light and colour


Sophie Willison
Sophie Willison
5.0 (6)
Instagram followers 9k followers

2.5 hours Class size 1 to 8 guests    

  $140 (Afterpay available)

Capture light in motion and transform it into a vibrant, one-of-a-kind photograph. In this experimental digital photography workshop, you’ll explore long exposure, colour, and movement to create beautiful light-painted portraits and abstract images.
You’ll learn the fundamental skills needed to take control of your digital camera before putting them into practice through creative light painting. We’ll explore the exposure triangle: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, and learn how these three essential camera settings work together to create a correctly exposed photograph.
Once you’ve got the basics down, we’ll slow things down and experiment with long shutter speeds to create striking photographs using light. Working in a darkened environment, you’ll use handheld lights and coloured gels to paint directly into your photographs, creating glowing trails, vibrant colours, and atmospheric effects.
You’ll also discover how light painting can be used creatively in portrait photography, combining a still subject with movement, colour, and long exposures to produce beautiful and unexpected portraits.
This workshop is perfect for beginners who want to understand manual camera settings while experimenting with photography in a relaxed, playful, and hands-on way. No previous experience with long exposure or light painting photography is needed.

Upcoming dates for Painting with Light: Digital Photography Workshop

Times are Sydney time. Dates and prices as of 13 Oct 2026, 6:17am; availability and price are confirmed live when booking on this page.

19 upcoming dates between 5 Nov 2026 and 11 Mar 2027.

  • Thu 5 Nov 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 12 Nov 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 19 Nov 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 26 Nov 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 3 Dec 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 10 Dec 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 17 Dec 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 24 Dec 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 31 Dec 2026, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 7 Jan 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 14 Jan 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 21 Jan 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 28 Jan 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 4 Feb 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 11 Feb 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 18 Feb 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 25 Feb 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 4 Mar 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
  • Thu 11 Mar 2027, 6pm-8:30pm
What you'll get
  • The fundamentals of digital photography and manual camera settings
  • How the exposure triangle works
  • How to control aperture, ISO, and shutter speed
  • How to use slow shutter speeds and long exposures
  • Light painting techniques using handheld lights and coloured gels
  • How to create creative long-exposure portraits
  • How to experiment with movement, colour, and light in-camera
Knowledge required
Perfect for: Beginners, photography enthusiasts, creatives, artists, and anyone wanting to build confidence using a digital camera while exploring experimental photography techniques.
What to bring
Please bring your own digital camera. Your camera will need to allow you to manually control settings such as shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. Come ready to experiment, play with light, and leave with a collection of unique photographs, as well as a much stronger understanding of how to use your camera beyond automatic mode.
Location

2/17 Charles Street, Redfern NSW

This venue is a short walk from St Peters station (300m).

Painting with Light: Digital Photography Workshop location
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Your teacher

Sophie Willison
Sophie Willison

5.0 (6)
Instagram followers 9k followers
female Women-owned

Sophie Willison is a freelance artist passionate about teaching. She has been self publishing her own arts and photography magazine, terra firma, for almost a decade, bringing together artists from all over the world to collectively realise an annual theme.
Sophie has a keen interest in the arts including analogue photography, design, publishing, curating and editing and is always working on exciting new projects.
She has guest lectured and given workshops at a variety of institutions from Westminster University, Guildford College and Parliament Hill school. She has run and successfully delivered workshops as part of programmes based in Normandy, France and Oxford, UK. Most recently being invited to design workshops in Sydney, Australia for contemporary cultural institutions such as Mosman Art Gallery, Campbelltown Arts Centre and Bankstown Arts Centre.

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class 0 V48I01Z33L 34c052b7f77f35dccea660a6ce51910d 1 production sydney Sydney NSW AU sydney